Milwaukee Bucks owner Herb Kohl said in December that he would seek additional investors to keep the NBA team in Wisconsin.

"It'd be great to be involved in helping a franchise that I worked for get back to the top. They deserve it," Abdul-Jabbar told CNBC.

"The Wisconsin sports fans are incredible, and they deserve a first-rate team. You see the way they support the Packers. That's for real. It's a great place to play."

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Pay college athletes

Abdul-Jabbar also said he supported some kind of compensation for college athletes.

"All of the money in the pro game has really sucked all the talent out of the college game, so it's rare that you have seniors coming into the NBA now," he said. "Everybody else, as soon as they manifest the type of talent that the NBA wants, they make the jump, and it's really hurt the college game."

Abdul-Jabbar said that one possible solution would be to give college players "a stipend of some type."

"You don't have to pay them huge amounts of money, but, you know, the NCAA last year collected $6 billion," he said. "The president of the NCAA makes like $1.7 million a year. They make a lot of money."

Abdul-Jabbar said that the perception of college sports is "really rooted in the 1920s and '30s when it was like a high school rivalry and the quarterback and one of the cheerleaders had a romance and they celebrated their victories at the malt shop. That's dead. This is a business."